Family Talk Night Light for Parents

God’s Lamp

The Lord will guide you always. Isaiah 58:11

Trying to talk with an unresponsive older teenager is like inserting dollar bills into a broken change machine—your words go in, but nothing comes back out! Yet it’s vital that you stay in touch with your sons and daughters preparing to leave the nest. At a moment when you least expect it, they may ask for your advice on life’s “big questions”: “I want to follow Jesus, but will He tell me what to do?” Or, “I think God is calling me to the ministry, but how can I support a family on a pastor’s salary?”

These are the times to gently put your arms around your kids and remind them of God’s infinite love: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” (Psalm 103:13). God, the ultimate parent, will never abandon any of us or ignore a request for guidance. His Word is “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105). That doesn’t mean He gives us a three-hundred-watt beam that reveals the entire landscape. But the Lord will illuminate our next step, and we must trust Him to lead us through the darkness beyond.

Your teen won’t be ready to discuss these deep scriptural insights every day. But if you stay close to your son or daughter, you’ll know just the right moment to drop in a few wise words from the Lord.

Before you say good night…

What “big questions” are on your kids’ minds right now?

What advice do you want to give them? Is it based on Scripture?

Are your kids trusting God to light their paths, one step at a time?

Father, we pray right now that You would grant us divine discernment. Help us to know our children as You know us, to see beyond their resistance and facades. Give us words of love and wisdom as we respond to their greatest struggles. Amen.

• From Night Light For Parents, by Dr. James & Shirley Dobson
  Copyright © 2000 by James Dobson, Inc. All rights reserved.